Determination of the Impact of Methods and Schemes for Opening a Deposit and Individual Quarry Horizons on the Efficiency of Open-Pit Mining Technology

A method for selecting the location of the mine is formulated, which reveals a certain deposit taking into account the level of design, and depends on the mining and geological conditions of the mineral occurrence, the general plan for the location of mining and processing plants and the chosen type of quarry transport. At the same time, competitive options for opening an iron ore deposit along the lying or hanging side of the ore body are considered, less often by the contact of the lying or hanging sides or by its middle. To evaluate the options for laying overburden and group trenches, it is necessary to use the following criteria: the distance of ore transportation from the quarry to the processing plant, waste rocks to dumps, processing waste to sludge storage facilities; the duration of the construction period to the starting capacity of the quarry; the net present value of ore extraction from the quarry and obtaining commercial iron-containing products from it during the existence of the mining and processing plant. It is proved that the choice of the opening method in the design of deposit development and the use of the optimal horizon opening scheme during operation directly affect the cost of ore extraction and the efficiency of open-pit mining operations. The distance of transportation of rock mass depends on the scheme of opening by internal trenches, so it is proposed to use the route development coefficient as an evaluation criterion, the values of which, as a rule, are in the range from 1.05 to 1.5, but they can reach 1.8.